Never Stop Believing
by Kiki Lelsissia
Summary: Prequel to I Believe, details what happened to Axel between his death and his ascension, as well as what happened when Riku, Sora, and Kairi went to the mansion. Axel x Roxas, Sora x Kairi, AU. Dedicated to AngelLadyG.


This is the prequel to **I Believe**. If you haven't read that, please go read it now. Even if you have, I changed it to better fit with this story. Go read it again.

Warning: Character death, character suicide, violence, ghosts, reincarnation. Slightly obvious reference to the TV show Ghost Whisperer, which I don't own. Riku bashing, Larxene bashing… Yaoi, obviously. Rated T to be safe.

Disclaimer: Don't own it now, won't own it later, don't sue me. All I own is the plot.

Edited on 6/9/08 to satisfy my slight OCD with spelling and grammar errors. :D

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**Never Stop Believing**

"Never stop believing, Axel. Never. We'll see each other again."

"I know, Roxas. In the next life."

"I love you, Axel."

"I love you too, Roxas. Forever."

Roxas smiled weakly.

"Go to sleep," Axel murmured. "I'll be right here, alright?"

Roxas nodded. As he drifted off to sleep he felt Axel place a soft kiss on his forehead.

Axel lingered awake for hours, watching over his ailing lover. It pained him that Roxas was deathly sick and he could not be of more help. Finally he succumbed to sleep, only to be awakened hours later by pounding on the door of the manor. Hurriedly he dashed to the door and opened it.

"Sora? Please, be quiet. Roxas is sleeping."

Sora pushed his way past Axel and sped through the manor to the bedroom where Roxas lie. Axel closed the door and followed him. As he reached Roxas' bedside, Sora collapsed in tears.

"Roxas! Brother! No!"

Axel stopped dead in his tracks as he entered the room.

_'How could I not have noticed? His skin is so pale… he… he can't be gone!'_

Sora shakily stood up and pointed a finger at Axel.

"You killed him! You killed him! My brother is dead by your hand!"

"No, Sora! No! I did not kill him! Please, Sora, please believe me!"

"How could you, Axel?"

"I did not kill him."

Axel stood dumbfounded as Sora fled the manor in tears.

"You knew, didn't you Roxas? You knew you would die tonight," murmured Axel.

Axel sat in silence for awhile, mourning his love, until the sounds of a large group of people ascending the driveway met his ears. He dashed towards the nearest window and beheld Sora, leading a mob of townspeople up toward the manor.

"Open the door!" A man yelled.

"Axel Minagawa! Come out of there now!" A woman cried.

"Seifer! Raijin! Break down the door!" Sora ordered.

With two mighty slams the door splintered and the mob entered the mansion. Frantically, Axel barricaded the door to the room where Roxas' body lie. Crouching in a corner, he pulled a dagger from his belt.

"Open this door!" Seifer yelled.

"MURDERER." Fujin cried.

"Break it down!" Another person cried.

"Perhaps, Roxas, I shall see you again sooner than expected…"

Axel smiles sadly. As the mob breaks down the door, Axel takes the dagger and buries it in his chest. The last thing he sees as a living human being is Sora's face grinning triumphantly over him.

_'Roxas… I'm coming…'_

The mob carried Roxas' body out of Minagawa Manor, then looted it. Lastly, they removed Axel's body from the now near empty manor and threw it in a hole in the cemetery.

A few weeks later, Twilight Town had returned to normal, save some strange happenings in the now abandoned Minagawa Manor. The last remaining Minagawa, Axel's younger brother Reno had moved away from the town, fearing for his own life. No one took the stories literally, after all, most of the townspeople remembered seeing Axel kill himself, or at least hearing about it. So when a teenager named Larxene Natsume went to the manor one night, no one thought anything of it. They would learn the hard way not to think lightly of the manor's ghostly resident.

-X-

Larxene Natsume silently crept up the path to the manor. The door was still broken down, so she slipped through without much trouble and headed straight to her destination: the room where both lovers spent their last moments. She picked her was through the room until she stood directly in front of the bed where Roxas Yamato had died. Then she smirked and called out:

"Axel! I killed Roxas!"

Almost instantly the misty form of Axel began to appear in front of her. Shocked, she took a step back, then turned and ran for the door. Unfortunately for her, Axel reached it before she did. Larxene screamed as Axel attacked her, enraged by her words. By the time she managed to get away and stumble back into town, she had lost too much blood to survive. Larxene Natsume died a few hours later, and the legend of the mansion ghost's wrath began…

-X-

Larxene's death by the hands of the ghost was enough to keep most people away. But a few years passed, the remainder of the Natsume family moved away, and Larxene faded into mystery. Then a young man named Squall Leonhart and his cousin Yuffie Kisaragi decided to go to the mansion one night…

-X-

Yuffie set up a few candles for light as Squall checked around the room for anything out of the ordinary. They didn't believe in the legend, you see, and they were here to try and disprove it.

"Ghost of the manor!" Squall called out.

"We have your lover!" Yuffie finished.

Axel's spirit appeared, and when the two terrified teenagers failed to produce Roxas, he grew upset. He slashed Squall across the face and vanished. Squall and Yuffie extinguished the candles and fled.

-X-

Many more years passed. Reno Minagawa, now married, had moved back to Twilight Town to raise his son. Now it was thirteen year old Reno Minagawa Junior's turn to approach the mansion and brave the ghost that resided there.

Reno stumbled up the vine covered front steps of the long abandoned manor. His best friend, Rude, followed a few steps behind.

"I'll be right here, Reno." Rude whispered.

"Run and get help if anything happens," Reno whispered back.

"Okay," Rude nodded. "Good luck."

Giving a nervous grin to his best friend, Reno entered the room where the ritual was to be performed. He closed the door behind him and lit a candle, sitting it down on the dusty bedside table.

"I summon the ghost of the mansion…" Reno whispered.

_'Nothing's happening… have to say it louder.'_

He whispered it one more time before getting up the courage to say it loudly.

"I summon the ghost of the mansion!"

Promptly, the misty figure of the fabled ghost began to appear in front of him. Reno gasped.

_'It… it worked!'_

Axel narrowed his eyes at the boy standing in front of him.

"Give me your name…"

"Reno… Reno Minagawa…"

"Impossible!" Axel hissed.

"Junior! I'm… I'm his son!" Reno cried.

Axel nodded, a faint trace of his old smirk visible on his ghostly features.

"Leave here, son of Reno Minagawa. Leave here and never return…"

As Axel begins to fade away, Reno cries out.

"Wait! Why?"

"My pain is not for you to bear…"

Axel disappeared completely and Reno became aware of Rude pounding on the door. He blew the candle out and left the room.

"We shouldn't be here, Rude…"

Rude asked why, but Reno ignored him and the two friends began the trek back to the town. A few minutes later, Reno silently closed the front door of his house when a voice comes out of the darkness.

"Where were you?"

"Dad!" Reno yelped. _'I never knew how much he sounds like the ghost…'_

"Tell me, son."

The younger Reno gulped. "Rude and I… we went to the mansion…"

Elder Reno gasped. He had expressly forbidden his son to ever go near the mansion.

"I'll never do it again, Dad, I promise."

"Good. The manor is a dangerous place. Now go to bed."

"Okay," murmured the younger Reno.

After his son was upstairs, the elder Reno slipped out of the house. A few minutes later, he stood in front of his childhood home. Sighing and running his hand through his hair, he entered the home he lost twenty years ago.

"Axel? Please, come out. I need to talk to you," Reno called, once he had reached the bedroom.

"I knew you would come…" Axel murmured, appearing behind his brother.

Reno turned to face Axel, shocked by what he saw.

"Yes, Reno. I am a ghost."

"I'm so sorry, Axel. I should have done something, it's all my fault!"

"No, Reno. This is my punishment."

"Nonsense! You were innocent, Axel! He was ill, you couldn't have killed him!"

"But I was not there when he needed me the most."

"You couldn't have known that he was going to die that night."

At this, Axel is silent. Reno pauses for a moment as well, then takes a deep breath and continues.

"Axel… why… why did you kill Larxene?"

"I did not know she had died."

Reno is silent.

"She came… and she called out that… that she had killed him," Axel murmured finally.

Reno nodded. "I understand." A moment passes, then he speaks again. "Axel? Do you forgive me?"

"How could I not? It was not your fault, brother."

"Please, Axel. Please stop."

"I cannot. Not until Roxas comes."

Reno nodded sadly.

"Enjoy your life while you have it, brother. You never know when it will end…"

With that said, Axel fades away. Reno sighs, silently praying that Axel's troubles will end soon.

_'Please, Roxas. Wherever you are, please, return to my brother soon.'_

-X-

Many more years passed. Many more curious teenagers went to the long abandoned manor. The Minagawa family still thrived, as did the Yamato family. Reno Junior had married and had a son, also named Reno. The first Reno Minagawa had died finally, at age seventy, surrounded by his family. Reno Minagawa III also married and had a daughter, whom he named Kairi. Now, Kairi Minagawa is sixteen, and she and her boyfriend Sora Yamato and friend Riku Hitoshi have decided to go to the mansion…

-X-

"Alright, Riku, let's see what you got." Sora snickered.

"Sora!" Kairi hissed. "Stop being so immature!"

"Ow! Kairi!" Sora yelped, rubbing his side where his girlfriend had elbowed him.

Riku smirked. "Honestly, Sora. You think I'm gonna wimp out?"

The three friends continued arguing as they hiked up to the old mansion. A few minutes later, Riku shut himself inside the room and began the ritual.

"I believe in the mansion's ghost."

As he repeated that phrase, Sora cracked the door open some so he and Kairi could see what was happening. After he was done chanting, Riku spun around once, then faced the mirror as the figure of the ghost began to appear inside it.

"See Sora, I didn't chicken out." Riku turned around to smirk at his brunet friend.

"Riku!" Sora cried out. "Behind you!"

A pale ghostly hand reached out of the mirror and grabbed Riku, turning him back around to face the mirror. Sora watched in horror as the ghost drained the life from his best and oldest friend.

"Kairi! Help me get him out of there! We need to get him to the hospital!" Sora shouted.

Kairi and Sora both burst into the room, startling Axel into vanishing. The two friends pick up the now limp body of Riku Hitoshi and hurriedly carry it out of the mansion. After they get outside, Sora uses his girlfriend's cell phone to call 911. A few minutes later, an ambulance picks them up at the base of the hill below the mansion. Though Riku Hitoshi's condition is stable upon arrival, within a few hours he is dead. And only three weeks later, Roxas Yamato also approaches the mansion, followed by Hayner Kinoshita, Pence Honda, and Olette Hikari.

-X-

"I believe in the mansion's ghost… I believe in the mansion's ghost…"

Hayner, Pence, and Olette all listen at the door as Roxas performs the ritual. Inside, Roxas finishes chanting. As he spins around to face the mirror again, Axel has already started to appear. Roxas is staring at the figure with a look of shocked recognition.

"Roxas…" Axel murmured softly.

"Axel…?"

Roxas takes Axel's outstretched hand and Axel gently pulls him into the mirror. His body falls lifelessly to the ground as Hayner, Pence, and Olette burst into the room.

-X-

The next night, Hayner, Pence, and Olette, as well as Sora, Kairi, and Naminé Kinoshita all return to the mansion. They all crowd into the room and Hayner begins the ritual. As he finishes chanting, two figures begin to appear in the mirror.

"Roxas…" Naminé gasped.

"Hey," Roxas smiled. "How have you guys been?"

"Rox? But you're…" Sora stuttered.

"Yeah, I'm dead, aren't I?"

"What happened?" asked Olette.

"Well, Axel? Do you want to start, or should I?" Roxas turned to the other figure in the mirror and smiled.

"I owe you all an explanation…" The redheaded ghost sighed. "My name was Axel Minagawa… Two hundred or so years ago, I lived in this house with Roxas."

"We were in love," Roxas sighed happily. "But I got sick. I was dying. Axel, he spent every moment caring for me, but he couldn't save my life."

Axel laughed once, a harsh grating sound, unused for so long.

"You, Sora, you thought Axel killed me. You accused him of killing me, and somehow you convinced the entire town." Roxas smiled sadly.

"The townspeople chased me through our manor; I locked myself in this room. I was so upset, Roxas… he was dead. Gone. My friends had turned on me, Sora; he had turned them all against me. So I grabbed my dagger and stabbed myself. I died right here, just as the mob broke down the door," Axel murmured.

"He waited here for two hundred years, waiting for me to come back to him." Roxas smiled again.

"I am sorry, Sora. Your friend, the one with the silver hair? He did not deserve what I did to him." Axel murmured. "Your loyalty to your brother and your friends is admirable. I only wish I had had that much strength." He managed a small smile.

"Thank you, Hayner. Thank you for daring me to come here. If you hadn't, I never would have remembered Axel. Then and now… he's everything to me. Now we can be together…" Roxas grinned happily.

"Wait… your name, it was Minagawa? That's my name..." Kairi asked.

"Yes. I am not surprised you do not know about me." Axel laughed once more, slightly less rough than before.

"You're my…?"

"Your great grandfather was my brother. I suppose he was ashamed of being related to the ghost of the manor. It is no wonder he did not speak of me."

Naminé appears very sad. She loved Roxas while he was alive. She also thought that he may have been able to return her feelings. Now her hopes have been killed, all in the span of a few minutes.

"I'm sorry, Nami. You and I weren't meant to be together. Your light is out there. Keep looking."

Roxas looked at the clock.

"Almost time then. Sora, please, bury my body beside Axel's. Tell Mom and Dad I love them."

"Ready, Roxas?" Axel asked.

"Yeah. I'm ready."

As Roxas is saying this, a small ball of light appears inside the mirror. Slowly it expands, until both Axel and Roxas can fit inside it.

"Goodbye!" Roxas called to his friends. "Never stop believing! Dreams do come true."

Roxas and Axel hold hands as they step into the white light, leaving the troubles of their lives behind and heading for a new future.

As the light faded, Hayner smiled.

"Good luck, Roxas. Good luck, Axel. You deserve it."

--Owari--

A/N: Oh my, it's finally done! I stayed up until almost 1am writing this, wasted a ton of time in all of my classes working on it, and now it's finally done! I still really hate the ending, so I may come back later and edit it, but as of now it is complete! Ah, yes. Dedicated to AngelLadyG. Forgot to put that at the top. Seriously, go read Magnetic Attraction now if you haven't already. It's on my favorite stories list, and AngelLadyG's on my favorite authors list. So, did you like it? Hate it? Not really care? Have ideas? Tell me! Review! I don't bite! Thanks for reading!

-Kiki Lelsissia


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